Will professionals who use their corporations to defer tax and split income with a spouse get squeezed?

Will the deficits be huge or ginormous?

Will meals on wheels survive - oops, sorry that's Trump's budget.

I don't know but next Wednesday night I have booked a 90 minute massage (and the funny thing is, she is the spouse of a tax accountant who specializes in Can/US taxation for those poor suffering US citizens who are CDN residents).

This is like some kind if big sporting event for me (if I liked sports). I'm looking for a small increase in defence spending to try to appease Trump (with a goal to eventually get to 2% - say over 20 years). I'm also looking for even more money for infrastructure than was already announced. The third thing I'm looking for - an elimination of so many useless tax credits for individuals.

The third thing I'm looking for - an elimination of so many useless tax credits for individuals.

Agreed. I hate boutique tax cuts.

Thought it was funny when the fitness tax credit came in.

We would efile the client tax returns with the tiny claim ($75 or so of tax savings).

Then we would get notified for a processing review and would have to fax in the receipts so someone making $70,000 per year could check them to ensure they comply with the 8 weeks/5 day camp rules etc....

Of course, I was expecting to have to do this so the client is already billed an extra $25-50 for preparing the tax return so in the end it was just a big circle jerk of government making Canada unproductive for their stupid political brownie points.

No new military spending or infrastructure (well, housing), but one less tax credit (it should have been fewer yet).

The best line I heard was from a guy on a BNN panel analyzing the budget. He said it was time the Liberals stopped running for office and started governing.This is a tap-dance budget which ignores all the problems Canada faces in favour of cheesy statements about the middle class. Another good line, this time I think from CTV, was that there was a new drinking game, and every time Morneau said 'middle class' you took a drink. Except now that he's raised taxes on alcohol it was an expensive game. You'd be both plastered and broke by the end of his presentation.

Oh, and the defense capital procurement budget has basically been eliminated.

Looks like they want to deal with income sprinkling among CCPC's which is fine - about time.

They are going to look at corporations holding investments - this is strange since the tax system already generally makes this costly to do but this would be easy pickings for them to squeeze more tax revenue from people who generally get little sympathy from the public.

However, there are arrangements that use trusts to pay out income as capital gains and hopefully they will close that down.

No increase to capital gains inclusion rate - this one is interesting as it will be harder to do as we get closer to an election. If it is not in next years' budget then it will not happen.

And who knows - if they clamp down on those who turn regular income into capital gains through companies and trusts then there may be little need to change the inclusion rate.

The best line I heard was from a guy on a BNN panel analyzing the budget. He said it was time the Liberals stopped running for office and started governing.This is a tap-dance budget which ignores all the problems Canada faces in favour of cheesy statements about the middle class. Another good line, this time I think from CTV, was that there was a new drinking game, and every time Morneau said 'middle class' you took a drink. Except now that he's raised taxes on alcohol it was an expensive game. You'd be both plastered and broke by the end of his presentation.

It actually was a pretty good budget in that it had no new spending. You should be happy with that.

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Oh, and the defense capital procurement budget has basically been eliminated.

With good reason - this is the 4th time for that between Harper and Trudeau.

DND is incapable of buying anything in a timely manner. Many of these projects will be lucky to be started by 2036.

It actually was a pretty good budget in that it had no new spending. You should be happy with that.

Why should I be happy with a promise to run deficits forever? Why should I be happy with a BS budget that talks about 'innovation' two hundred times but has no vision? Why should I be happy with an incompetent government deciding it can engage in Soviet style central planning, pick who the economic/industrial winners are, and feed money to them as if they have the slightest ability to understand where the market is headed?

None of this is going to help the economy. It's going to hinder the economy. All these taxes and regulations are doing nothing good.

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With good reason - this is the 4th time for that between Harper and Trudeau.

DND is incapable of buying anything in a timely manner. Many of these projects will be lucky to be started by 2036.

That's total BS. Are you hiding under your bed in terror that a general might say something unpleasant to you? Because you make it sound like the Trudeau government is. Where's the leadership? They need twenty years to get hold of DNDs procurement issues? Seriously!? The Tories were at least able to buy stuff when they felt we needed it, even if it was without a competition. There is no way in hell that the military can hold back on capital procurement for another twenty years and be anything but a rusted out hulk fit only to patrol peaceful third world countries.